


till then my windows ache

by ohmcgee



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Jason being his usual self-deprecating self, M/M, Slow Build, Tim is a high class escort/companion, guess what I wrote another weird au, he and Jason are roomates, mechanic!Jason, slight vague mention of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-18
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-18 12:58:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3570503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmcgee/pseuds/ohmcgee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tim is a high class companion and Jason is a mechanic and his roommate. Just another wtf AU by yours truly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	till then my windows ache

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for the prompt: DCU, Tim Drake/Jason Todd, Tim's a male escort, Jason's his overprotective roommate. Idk how it turned into this, but okay.

Tim drags into the kitchen, hair sticking up on one side of his head, eyes barely open as he reaches for the coffee pot and his mug sitting right next to it on the counter. He leans over the cup and inhales the caffeine steam for a moment, like he’s too tired to even lift the cup to his mouth.

Jason chuckles, dumping Raisin Bran into a bowl. “Rough night?”

Tim takes a couple of sips of his coffee, eyes finally blinking wide and focusing on the room, and pads into the dining room to join Jason at the table. “Long night,” he says, pulling his feet under him in the chair, drowning in the over-sized hoodie he’d pulled on before he came out of his room. At Jason’s raised eyebrows and innuendo-laden smirk, he rolls his eyes. “He was a talker. We were up until like, four am just talking.”

“Huh.” Jason says mildly and digs into his cereal.

Tim raises the mug to his mouth again. “It’s not always about sex, you know.”

Jason looks up at him. “I didn’t mean to--”

Tim shakes his head gently. “I just mean, if someone just wants sex, there are plenty of other options to choose from, you know? Being a companion is different.” He takes another sip of coffee. “He seemed really lonely.”

Jason nods like he understands.

 

***

 

He doesn’t really understand. Well, he does, in a sort of detached, abstract sort of way, the same way that he understands that there’s a moon and a sun and that the stars we see aren’t even burning anymore, but he can’t _really_ understand because he’s nothing like Tim. 

Tim grew up in a gated community, in a house with six bedrooms and a butler, went to private school, ate fucking _sushi_ for lunch everyday. His parents shelled out major cash to get him into the best companion school money could buy. Jason grew up on the streets, sometimes no bedroom at all, didn’t even graduate high school, and had to ration the scraps of food he sometimes had to steal just to survive. His parents died from drugs and stupidity. 

He’s still getting used to living with Tim. Three weeks ago he’d been living out of his car and when Tim had come to the garage to get his bike worked on, the little fucker had somehow figured it out, making Jason wonder if being a snoop was part of the whole companion training thing. They probably called it something classier, like “honing the art of observation” or whatever. Probably the same way they taught him how to be able to talk his way around anything and actually get Jason to agree to move in with some fucker he’d just met. Sure, Tim was one of the prettiest guys he’d even seen, but usually he’s got more self-preservation than that.

“I’ve got this huge loft all to myself,” he’d shrugged, sipping on his coke. “Four bedrooms going to waste. Why don’t you take one of them?”

Jason had just kind of stared at him, carburetor in his hand. “I don’t even know you.”

Then Tim had turned that twelve thousand dollar smile on him and said, “I’ve got great references,” and Jason had folded like a cheap suit. 

It wasn’t fair, the way he’d barely known Tim for an hour and yet he could manipulate him so easily, get him to agree to basically anything he said and make him feel all warm and important when he turned that bright smile at him. Jason had wondered for the first, but definitely not the last time, if that had to do with his training or if it was something else entirely.

 

***

 

Turns out having Tim as a roommate is pretty cool. Jason had never really had a roommate before, unless you counted some of the other street kids he squatted with after his mom died, before he’d found a place of his own, and he’d worried that they wouldn’t get along or that Tim would kick him out in two weeks for being too loud or not clean enough or that he would just realize that he didn’t like him very much. But Tim, he quickly found out, was one of the most easy going people he’d ever met. He didn’t complain when Jason forgot and put the empty juice carton back in the fridge or forgot to wash his share of the dishes, or when he fell asleep on the couch watching tv and the X-Files marathon played all night long. 

Plus, there were times when Tim was gone for days at a time, sometimes entire weekends. Once he was gone for a whole week, keeping some rich douchebag’s bed warm while he went to business conferences during the day. Tim had emphasized that it wasn’t always about sex plenty of times, but Jason knew, you didn’t take a pretty thing like Tim out of the country with you for a week just for the _conversation._

Tim would always come back from his trips with souvenirs for Jason, like the tiny maracas from Brazil or the surfboard keychain from Hawaii that said _mahalo_ across it, and always a new magnet to stick to the fridge. Jason looks at the fridge every morning when he goes to grab the milk for his cereal. There are ones shaped like the Eiffel Tower, ones in the shapes of all the states he’d been to -- there were nineteen -- ones from India, Tokyo, Germany, and one of a koala bear that Jason assumes is from Australia.

Jason’s never been out of Gotham except for the three months he spent upstate in juvie when he was fifteen. He stares at the fridge sometimes and wonders _what the fuck am I doing here?_

 

***

 

Jason gets home after work on Friday and goes straight to the shower to wash off the oil and engine grease, scrub away the smell of transmission fluid and Fast Orange, then slips into a pair of jeans and a nice looking, but casual shirt in his closet. When he comes out of his room, padding barefoot across the hardwood floors, Tim’s curled up on the end of the sofa, tablet in his hands, scrolling through the list of potential clients on his companion app.

“She’s cute,” he says, looking over Tim’s shoulder. He thinks there’s supposed to be something about client confidentiality, but Tim’s never called him on it and he never asks anything personal, so he figures he’s not breaking any big companion rules or anything by just looking.

Tim snorts. “And illiterate, apparently,” referring to the _orientation: male_ status on his profile, the first thing you’d see after his picture. 

Jason laughs, grabbing an apple out of the bowl on the table. “Can’t blame a girl for trying.” He leans over the side of the couch and taps the screen. “What about him?”

Tim wrinkles his nose up. “Foot fetish. I don’t do feet.”

“So, you just. You just get to pick and choose? Like, it’s completely up to you?”

Tim cranes his neck back and looks at Jason like he’s crazy. “Of course.”

Jason’s still wrapping his mind around the whole thing. He knows what companions are and what they do, he’s had this knowledge his whole life, but it’s still such a foreign concept to him, the fact that it’s _Tim’s_ choice who he wants to take on as a client. It’s just still kind of hard for him to separate the thing that Tim does from the thing that he saw lots of kids and women do on the streets, when they were down on their luck and starving and would do just about anything for a jug of milk and some bread. He _knows_ it’s different, but try telling his subconscious that. 

“Hey, get dressed,” He says, punching Tim’s shoulder. “We’re going out.”

They go out to the bar around the corner and watch the game on the overhead tv and eat hot wings. Jason doesn’t get to see Tim like this very often. He’s either in the loft, buried under layers and hoodies and blankets, or he’s in companion mode, expensive suits that Jason wouldn’t be able to afford if he saved up half a year’s salary, his hair all slicked back, flawless skin and perfect manners. This is different, seeing him in jeans and a t-shirt, licking hot wing sauce off his fingers and yelling at the tv, swearing like a sailor. He tips his beer back and Jason gets distracted watching the way his throat works when he swallows, doesn’t notice the guy until he’s right up in Tim’s space, slipping him his credentials and then walking off, like that’s all Tim is, open twenty-four seven for douchebags anywhere, like he can’t just take a night off and have a beer with his buddy. Jason watches the dude walk off and slide back into a booth with his friends, laughing too loud, two empty pitchers on their table. He doesn’t like him.

Tim just gives him a look and shrugs, sliding the guy’s credentials in his back pocket, and they go back to drinking and watching the game, but when they get ready to leave, Tim says, “I’ll see you in the morning,” and Jason doesn’t have to guess where he’s going to be all night, but he doesn’t like it.

He never brings any of them back home, number one rule of being a companion, and for that Jason is infinitely grateful. It’s for safety reasons, of course, but he has a feeling that if he had to wake up and find that smug jerk-off in their kitchen, it’s not Tim who’d be in danger. 

 

***

He wonders, trying to distract himself from the rage boiling inside of him, clenching and unclenching his fist by his side, if he’d spent so much time around low lifes and assholes that he’d developed a sixth sense for sniffing them out. He closes his eyes to try and get his blood pressure to stop spiking, but that doesn’t work, all he can see is the bruise on Tim’s cheek and it’s all he can do not to put his fist right through the wall.

“It’s okay,” Tim says, like he’s trying to calm _him_ down, like _he’s_ the one that needs protecting. “It’s taken care of. That jerk won't be able to hire another companion for at least five years and copious amounts of community service." 

Jason opens his eyes and they go straight to the bruise, high on Tim’s cheek, half his face puffy and swollen.

It’s not enough.

 

***

Tim’s already awake the next morning when Jason walks in the kitchen. He looks down at Jason’s knuckles, red and swollen, at his laptop on the coffee table instead of the couch where he’d left it last night. 

“Jason,” he says, his voice measured and still. “Did you go somewhere last night?”

Jason’s eyes flicker over at him just for a moment, then he opens up the fridge to get the milk. “No,” he lies.

 

***

 

Sometimes Tim goes a while without any clients. Jason’s not sure if it’s by choice or if he just doesn’t get any requests, though he finds the latter incredibly unlikely, but he doesn’t ask.

They sit around and play videogames and watch stupid sci-fi movies that Tim loves about robots and space and Tim tries to cook, tries being the operative word.

“How can you fuck up mac and cheese?” Jason laughs at him and shoves him aside, removing the scorched pan from the stove and running some water over it in the sink to soak.

“People usually cook for me,” Tim sticks his tongue out. “Or you know, take me to five star restaurants. Or order me room service. Or --”

Jason holds his hand up. “I get it Cinderella.” He laughs. “But this is fucking pathetic, okay? I’m teaching you to cook.”

Two hours and one destroyed kitchen later, Jason has successfully taught Tim how to make a decent chicken alfredo. 

“Here, try it,” he says, shoving a spoon in Tim’s mouth so he can taste the sauce. “Good?”

Tim nods, licking his lips, but there’s a smidge of sauce in the corner of his mouth he doesn’t get off and Jason reaches out before his brain can catch up with him, wiping it off with his thumb. 

Tim blushes high in his cheeks. “It’s good,” he murmurs and Jason clears his throat, turning away before he says or does anything to embarrass himself. 

 

***

Sometimes, when he’s not busy, Tim will come down and hang out at the shop with Jason, sit on top of a stack of tires and talk or read or sometimes just watch quietly as Jason works beneath the cars. Sometimes he brings him lunch from the diner way across town that has the amazing chili cheese fries and Jason always wants to ask him why. Why is he here, getting dirty and listening to eighties hair bands and bringing Jason his favorite food and asking him what the difference between a V6 and a straight six is, like he actually fucking cares. 

Tim is all sharp, neat angles, clean and flawless. He speaks three different languages and has a collection of vintage wine. He doesn’t belong here, getting dirty and greasy and wasting his time. He doesn’t belong with Jason.

 

***

 

Jason gets drunk on his birthday. Really, really, stupidly drunk.

Tim’s been gone two days to Africa, or maybe it was Antartica. It could’ve been Alabama. Jason doesn’t remember. He just knows he fucking _hates_ birthdays and the loft has been so fucking quiet and there was a space documentary on Wednesday that he’d tivo’d for Tim and every time he starts up the coffee pot he thinks of him, hair sticking up everywhere, face soft around the edges, pj bottoms slung low on his tiny hips and Jason says _fuck it_ , calls Roy up and they to every bar they can find and get absolutely shitfaced.

Tim’s there when he stumbles through the door sometime after one, curled up on the couch in his sweats and the same stupid red hoodie he always wears around the house, watching the fucking documentary Jason recorded for him. 

“Hey,” he says sleepily and Jason trips over his own boots, knocking a lamp off the table.

“Jesus,” Tim mutters and gets up, setting the lamp and side table back straight, pulling Jason up off the floor. Well, he tries, but Jason’s kind of a dead weight and when he tries, he just gets yanked down on the floor with him. 

“You smell like a brewery,” Tim says, getting him out of his jacket. Jason leans into him, his nose grazing the column of Tim’s throat. 

“Smell like my soap,” Jason slurs, his mouth moving across Tim’s skin. 

Tim shivers. “I was out.”

“S’my birthday,” Jason says, leaning back as Tim unties his boots and slides them off his feet, staring up at the ceiling. 

“I know. I’m sorry I missed it.”

Jason waves a hand around haphazardly, almost smacking Tim in the face with it. “Hate it,” he says. “Roy. Roy knows.”

“I don’t know Roy,” Tim frowns. 

“Tried to kiss me,” Jason rambles. “Make me feel better. Think I hit him? I don’t know.”

Tim tugs at his arm. “C’mon Jay, let’s get you to bed.”

Jason stands up wobbly and leans on Tim all the way to his bedroom, stalling in the doorway. “I didn’t want to kiss _him_ ,” he says and sways forward, lips brushing across Tim’s almost too briefly to be called a kiss. He pulls back, suddenly looking about ten times more sober than when he walked in the door. “I’m drunk,” he says, like this is a revelation he’s just now realized. “And you’re...perfect. Fancy. Nice. You don’t want…”

He trails off and Tim grabs his wrist, eyes pleading with him to just finish what he was going to say, but Jason shakes his head. 

“I’m going to throw up,” He says and shuts the door behind him.

 

***

 

They don’t talk about it.

 

***

 

A week goes by. Three weeks. A month. Jason remembers exactly what happened, remembers how Tim’s lips felt against his even in that briefest moment, that barely-there touch. But he doesn’t bring it up and they never talk about it and he’s not stupid, he knows what that means. Tim doesn’t want to talk about it because he doesn’t want to think about it because he doesn’t want _him._

It’s not like it’s a surprise. It just sucks because it makes things awkward, strained. They play video games and they watch tv, but Tim doesn’t come to the shop anymore, doesn’t ask Jason to teach him how to cook anything else. Then he starts taking on more and more clients and he’s gone so often that Jason would feel like he lived alone if it weren’t for the growing collection of magnets on the refrigerator. One morning when Tim’s not there, he drags his arm across the front of it in a blind rage and scatters every magnet on the floor. 

When he comes home that evening from work Tim’s home. He can tell because Tim’s favorite blanket isn’t on the back of the couch and the lights are on and the smell of coffee lingers in the air, and all the magnets are back on the fridge.

 

***

 

Tim comes to the shop on a Tuesday. Just stands there and stares at Jason and Jason stares back at him, waiting for him to say something. When he finally does, Jason wishes he hadn’t.

“You kissed me,” he says, eyes locked onto Jason’s, refusing to break away. 

“I was drunk,” Jason says turning his back to Tim to grab a socket wrench, freezing when Tim’s fingers wrap around his wrist. He snaps his neck around, yanks his hand out of Tim’s grip. 

“Don’t you have a senator to blow or something?” He says because it’s easier, because it’s what he knows, because even though the hurt and the pain that flashes behind Tim’s eyes makes him want to throw up, makes him wish he was _dead_ , it’s better than hearing Tim tell him he doesn’t like him like _that_ , trying to let him down easy like the nice fucking person he is. 

It’s better, he tells himself. It is.

 

***

 

He stays at Roy’s house for three days before Roy tells him to fucking grow a pair and literally kicks his ass out. 

“Tim?” Jason calls when he walks in the door. “You home?”

He guesses a fist to the mouth is probably what he deserves. “ _Asshole._ ”

Jason rubs his jaw, drags his thumb over his bottom lip to wipe away the blood where Tim’s knuckles split his lip. “Yeah. About that.”

“I’ve been calling you for three _days_.”

“I was at Roy’s?”

“I didn’t _know_ that!” Tim shouts and shoves him. “You just. You fucking _left._ ”

“You leave all the time,” Jason points out. He’s already confused about the direction this whole conversation has taken. He said a really, _really_ shitty thing to Tim. He’d expected to walk in, apologize for being the world’s biggest asshole, and pack his shit. Not for Tim to be, what, mad at him for not telling him he was going to be at Roy’s a few days?

“Yeah, but you know where I’m going! And when I’ll be back! And I don’t just leave right after we have a stupid argument.” 

“Argument,” Jason repeats. “Tim, I said --”

“I know what you said. It was mean and hurtful and I hated you for about two hours for it, but _fuck you_ for leaving!” He hits Jason’s chest with his fist and Jason catches his wrist, just as a reflex, but then --

Then Tim’s mouth is pressed against his, his fingers curled tight around Jason’s collar and he’s kissing him. Tim’s kissing him and it doesn’t make any sense, but Jason lets him, kisses him back even, because even if this is some hysterical, temporarily insane reaction Tim’s having, Jason will take it. Maybe that makes him a terrible person, but what else is new.

Eventually Tim pulls away, still clutching Jason’s shirt like he’s afraid he’s going to leave again. “I thought you weren’t coming back,” he whispers.

“I thought you didn’t want me to come back,” Jason says and for a minute it looks like Tim’s going to hit him again and he braces for it, but then his expression softens, changes into something new. Tim looks lost, confused. Jason’s never seen him not look sure of himself and it kind of terrifies him.

“This is going to sound stupid,” Tim says, avoiding eye contact. “But I kind of suck at relationships.”

“But --”

Tim shakes his head. “Those are all temporary. I only see those guys once. You…”

Jason feels his throat tighten up. He wants to ask, but he doesn’t want to ask. His heart feels like it’s going to burst out of his chest if Tim doesn’t say something soon. 

Tim rests his head against Jason’s shoulder and laughs a little. “I looked through my client history for the past month this morning,” he says. “Wanna guess what they all had in common?”

Jason just stares at him.

“Black hair, blue eyes,” Tim explains and Jason’s throat goes suddenly dry. Tim laughs. “I even stopped asking for non-smokers.”

“Tim --”

“Jason, if you don’t feel the same way I need you to tell me right now. I can’t -- this is new to me and --”

Jason grabs him by the waist and drags Tim against him, kisses him long enough he hopes Tim gets the fucking picture. “I’m kind of stupidly in love with you,” he says, panic seizing up his chest as soon as the words stumble out of his mouth. 

“Oh,” Tim blushes, leaning against Jason, lying his head back on his shoulder. “I think. I think me too.”

Jason just holds him for a few minutes, rubbing the space between Tim’s shoulder blades with his knuckles. He figures if they’re doing the whole honestly-feelings thing there’s something else he should say, even though it scares the shit out of him, not knowing what Tim’s response will be. They kind of just declared their feelings for each other, he shouldn’t be making demands already or god, trying to change him, but still, he feels like this is probably an important thing he should go ahead and get out of the way before they go any farther.

“Confession,” he says softly, moving his hand up to stroke the back of Tim’s neck with his thumb. “I don’t want to share you with anyone.”

He feels Tim’s mouth press against the side of his neck. “Oh, I didn’t tell you?” He’s smiling when he pulls back to look at Jason. “I’m retiring.”


End file.
